Maria Mercedes Gomez

My name is Maria Mercedes Gómez, I am from Bogotá, Colombia, and currently I am a first year MA student in the Latin American Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Since I was a little girl, my parents involved me in several cultural and artistic activities like piano lessons, art exhibitions and musicals. However, when it was time to decide which career path I wanted to take, I decided to find an area in which I could continue to flourish culturally and artistically but I could also help others in need. That is why I studied History. History has allowed me to work in Governmental Institutions in Colombia and Social Service projects in rural areas of Mexico. In the past six years I obtained BA in History from Pontificia Univerisdad Javerina in Bogota, Colombia and a second BA in History from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico. Also, I worked for two years at the “Comision de la Verdad” in Colombia. These experiences studying and working with violence in Colombia and Mexico gave me a multicultural and comparative analysis perspective of power and democracies in Latin America.